Love everyone, even them

• From the Gospel this Sunday: This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. (John 15:12-14)
• From the First Reading this Sunday: In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him. (Acts 10:34-35)
• From the Second Reading this Sunday: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. (1 John 4:7)

We have one instruction from Jesus; love everyone.  This is what Jesus requires of us to be his friends.  We owe Jesus a debt for saving us from our own sins.  But instead of collecting on the debt, he invites us to be his friends.  It immediate seems difficult.  We immediately ask, “Everyone?  Including those who hate us? Those who harm us, or kill innocent people, or say evil things about our faith?”  It would appear that is exactly what Jesus taught his disciples. 

Two gun violence incidents in the news this past weekend put this teaching to the ultimate test.  A man with a gun in Menasha, Wisconsin opened fire at random people on a recreational trail.  His victims included a mother and father and 11-year-old daughter, and an unrelated adult man.  The father and daughter died, as did the unrelated adult, and the gunman.  The mother was wounded and moved her other two children to safety.  Another incident involved two armed men who attacked a blasphemous anti-Islam exhibit in Texas, wounding the security guard before being killed themselves. 

In Menasha, Wisconsin:

Jon Stoffel, who was killed along with his daughter, Olivia, on the Trestle Trail Bridge this past Sunday, uttered his last words to his wife, “Forgive the shooter.”  The family of Adam Bentdahl, the 31-year-old man who was killed, said, “We still need to keep loving people and living our lives. … Our prayers go out to the other family who lost their father and daughter, and mother who is struggling for life along with the man who took his own life.”  Truly this is the witness of people who love others, as Jesus has loved them.  To forgive someone who has harmed us is hard enough, but to forgive and pray for someone who has killed your child must be extremely difficult.  It defies logic for a dying man to forgive the person who killed his child, or a family to forgive the man who killed their adult child, at random.  In fact, it may be impossible without the Grace of God.  It takes the power of God’s love, alive in us, to allow us to reach this level of love and forgiveness. 

In Texas:

An anti-Islamic group sponsored a blasphemous exhibit of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed.  It should not be a surprise to anyone that this provoked anger among Muslims.  This does not excuse the violent response of two men, who shot at the building, wounding a security guard.  There is no love expressed in a blasphemous caricature of another person’s religious figure.  The response was equally reprehensible.  Violence against blaspheme does not end the insult, but only fuels further insults and hatred for the religion.

In the Occupied territory of Palestine, 1^st Century AD:

According to the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter is summoned by a Centurion, a leader of the occupying, abusive, Roman Empire.  The Centurion invites his friends to hear Peter.  An angel speaks to Peter telling him to go to the centurion.  When Peter sees the faith of the foreigners, and the power of the Holy Spirit working among them, he understands that they too, are friends of Jesus.  Even though the Romans were the hated occupying force, Peter and the Centurion are friends through Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, they are connected in a community of faith. 

Jesus gives us a choice.  Love, and be his friends, or remain a captive of the debt for our sins.  Through our human sinfulness, we have accumulated a debt that we cannot repay.  We are slaves to our sins.  If we accept the command to love, we become children of God.  The first letter of John says we are “begotten by God” (1John 4:7) if we love.  As children of God, and friends of Jesus, our debt is wiped away.  If we accept the challenge to love others as Jesus loves, we are freed from our debt.  It is not easy to love those who hate us.  Whether it is someone from a different religion, someone who insults our religion, an occupying army, or a gunman who kills a child, we must love as God loves, and forgive as he forgives, if we want to be free.